The STEMpunk Project: Goals, and How to Achieve Them

My primary focus in 2016 is the STEMpunk project, so I wanted to take a moment to make it clear exactly what I mean when I said I wanted to “shore up my techie credentials“.

Before I do, though, I want to point out how important it is to engage in the sort of plan building I’ve done below when trying to accomplish something of any magnitude. Vague slogans and unarticulated ambitions might be enough to get started on a large project, but they aren’t enough to see it through to the end. Actually finishing, or even making enough progress to not feel bad about the time invested, requires careful and consistent forethought.

With that having been said, here is the broad outline:

COMPUTING (~10 WEEKS)

Funds permitting I will build my next desktop computer, use my current machine as a linux box or a media center, build an understanding of networks and computer security (including possibly getting some certifications), and hopefully make an entire virtual computer from NAND gates up.

Stage I: Spend two hours a day or so reading books about building computers and putting a parts list together. Run the list by techier friends and then, if money isn’t tight, order the parts.

Even if I’m not able to actually build the computer until later in the year going through the process of researching components and how they interrelate will be an invaluable learning experience.

Stage II: Complete as much of the “build a computer from first principles” course as I can, collecting parts while I do so. When all the parts come in, build the computer, or defer the building until later in the year when I have more money to spend on components.

Stage III: Begin with a CompTIA A+ book and work through it, spending about two hours a day. Get a certification if time permits and I think it’s worth having. Repeat the process with CompTIA’s Network+ and Security+ books.

Stage III: Make an inventory of all the electrical devices and systems in my house. Go through them and see how much my new-found knowledge allows me to understand, cataloging the remaining gaps. Either make a plan to fill those gaps or arrange to have a contractor/electrician come to my house and spend half a day explaining it all to me.

Stage IV: Reach out to an electrician buddy of mine and offer to do some free work for him in exchange for a kind of fast-paced Apprenticeship Blitz lasting a couple of weeks.

Stage III: Make an inventory of all the electrical devices and systems in my house. Go through them and see how much my new-found knowledge allows me to understand, cataloging the remaining gaps. Either make a plan to fill those gaps or arrange to have a contractor/electrician come to my house and spend half a day explaining it all to me.

Stage IV: Proceed through a series of real-life disassemble/repair/reassamble projects of escalating complexity. I haven’t mapped this part out completely, but I was thinking of doing something along the lines of coffee maker, water pump, weed eater motor, and cheap old motorcycle.

ROBOTICS (~10 WEEKS)

I’m actually most excited about this, after computing. The plan here is to use what I’ve learned in electronics, computing, mechanics, and programming to do some basic home automation. I have this vision of myself walking through my living room and casually throwing out commands in a few different foreign languages to my refrigerator, the blender, little robot arms holding up the six computer monitors my custom-built desktop is outfitted with, etc.

At a minimum, maybe I can get the refrigerator door to open on command or something.

Stage III: I’m not sure yet. I have ideas for basic home automation but no way of calibrating the difficulty of doing these things. At the end of stages I and II I may be good enough to do several of these projects, or I may be barely good enough to even get started on one. I will have to get this far and then plan more deeply.

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There you have it, guys. This is what I’ll be spending most of 2016 working on!